Little Elm High School

Weekly Newsletter - January 1st, 2016

Little Elm High School

Weekly Newsletter - January 1st, 2016

Academic Decathlon Program Spotlight

Teams of nine high school students compete in academic events. The makeup of each of the nine member teams must include three A students, three B students, and three C or below students.

Academic Decathletes take 30-minute multiple-choice tests in the subjects of Art, Economics, Music, Language and Literature, Mathematics, Science, and Social Science. In addition, each team member gives a planned 4-minute Speech and a 2-minute impromptu Speech, participates in a 7 minute Interview, and has 50 minutes to write an Expository Essay. The Super Quiz Relay, the final event, is open to the public and features questions from subject matters including Art, Economics, Music, Language and Literature, Science, and Social Science. All Decathletes compete in all ten events.

LEHS has offered Academic Decathlon as a class this year for the first time. Each year a new topic is announced for the following year’s competitions. This year’s topic is India. Established teams begin studying at the end of the school year and over the summer. Our team had a late start and began their journey when school started. Even with the late start they are making an impression on other teams. The LEHS Academic Decathlon team has competed in two large competitions this year, one in October and one in December, in addition to a two school scrimmage that was held at LEHS on December 4. At the Rockwall meet in October they placed 17th out of 46 teams, many of which were large schools with established programs. At our scrimmage on December 4 with South Garland High School, our team won the over all meet as well as many individual medals. On the heels of a narrow victory against South, who ranked 10th in the state amongst medium division teams last year, your Little Elm team placed fourth out of 22 teams at the Keller competition against some of the most talented large division teams in the state. Below you will find a categorical breakdown of student awards at the Keller competition. Each student competed in a division against as many as 90 competitors.

Art

2nd Place Scholastic: Jake Mooney

3rd Place Scholastic: Blake Warner

Math

1st Place Scholastic: Blake Warner

2nd Place Scholastic: Jake Mooney

1st Place Varsity: James Cope

3rd Place Varsity: Tessa Castelow

Science

1st Place Scholastic: Jake Mooney

2nd Place Scholastic: Blake Warner

2nd Place Varsity: James Cope

Speech

2nd Place Honors: Ryan Wong & Emily Garcia

2nd Place Scholastic: Tinashe Gandhle

1st Place Varsity: Tessa Castelow

Overall

2nd Place Scholastic: Jake Mooney

3rd Place Scholastic: Blake Warner

Little Elm High School will travel to San Antonio at the end of January to compete in the Regional Competition that will determine state qualifiers. With the success that the LEHS team has already experienced, we are hopeful that the state competition will be in our future. Good luck to these students as they begin what we hope is a lasting legacy!

Renee Pentecost

Principal

Little Elm High School

SAVE THE DATE! CHART YOUR COURSE SECONDARY SHOWCASE

LEISD will host its annual Chart Your Course Secondary Showcase event on Wednesday; January 27th from 6:30-8:30 PM at Little Elm High School. This is an annual opportunity specifically for all 5-11th grade students and parents! Attendees will have the opportunity to view all of the curriculum opportunities offered within LEISD, and begin the planning process for future coursework and success! Last year we had a huge turnout and the general response was that this event was a great way to interact with teachers, ask questions, obtain information, and generally see everything LEISD has to offer for secondary students. This year’s theme will be STAR WARS! Administrators, counselors, staff, students, and translators will be on site to assist you, as needed. Please mark your calendars now and make plans to attend this tremendously informative event designed to help all LEISD secondary students Chart Your Course for success! Make plans now to attend. You can click HERE for more information and the event flyer.

ALL THINGS YEARBOOK!

The LEHS yearbook program is on Twitter!!! Follow us @leb16deal and tag your friends at school events (#lehsbigdeal), and your pictures may be used in this year's book!

HOSA Bears for Care

On Monday, December 14th, HOSA donated 112 of the 555 bears collected to Toys for Tots. Mike Atwater, their representative, came out to accept the donation. A majority of the remaining bears are going to Crossridge Life Church to be handed out to the children at their annual holiday celebration. The remaining bears are being distributed through-out the community to children at local events. Thank you for everyone's donation!

LEHS Fine Arts

The Spitfire Grill

Little Elm High School's New Horizons Theatre program will present The Spitfire Grill, based on the 1996 film about a feisty young woman who follows her dreams to a small town in Wisconsin. There she finds a place for herself working at Hannah's Spitfire Grill. It is for sale, but there are no takers for the only eatery in the depressed town, so newcomer Percy suggests to Hannah that she raffle it off. Entry fees are one hundred dollars and the best essay on why you want the grill wins. Soon, mail is arriving by the wheelbarrow full and things are definitely cookin' at the Spitfire Grill.

LEHS DECA Recognition

The Little Elm High School chapter of DECA was recognized as chapter of the month for October by the officers of DECA District 7 which covers Tarrant, Collin, and Denton county High Schools. This was in honor of our Community Service activities with the Food Drive which collected over 21,000 pounds of food, Halloween Festival-DECA Dungeon fund-raiser for Angel Tree and our Angel Tree toy donation. Click HERE to view the newsletter.

DECA information

DECA meets Thursday's after school in the lecture hall. If you would like to receive information about DECA events, please e-mail Mr. Hutley at rhutley@leisd.ws from your High School e-mail account.

Help Needed

Little Elm High School offers several different programs to facilitate student learning in the community. These include earning class room credit for paid employment and for unpaid internships (especially health care related). If you are a Little Elm area employer please consider working with our Little Elm High School students. Any students placed through our coop or intern programs will receive industry specific training and oversight from a teacher. E-mail Rodger Hutley, Marketing Teacher at rhutley@littleelmisd.net for more information.

University of North Texas hosts its first “Instant Decision Day” for high school students at Little Elm High School

On Friday, December 11th, twelve seniors at Little Elm High School got the news they have been waiting to hear in an instant. These seniors participated in the “University of North Texas Instant Decision Day” during 6th period in the Little Elm High School library.

Each student met individually with Admissions Counselors from UNT and after reviewing their application, official high school transcript, and SAT or ACT scores, each student was given their admission decision on the spot! Dustin Mayfield, Director of Admissions Operations for UNT said, “This event was a huge success, this is the first time we have ever done anything like this at a high school, and we will definitely be back next year.”

The students who were admitted on the spot were, Aleezah Balolia, Hunter Harrison, Aaron Guidry, Alyssa Fields, Jordynn Shelton, Kylie Beemer, Jordan Bell, Destiny Dudley, Cameron Resurreccion, Nyasia Robreno, Curtis Emery, and Maria Escareno. “I am hoping this event will ignite a fire in younger students at Little Elm to prepare for college early and encourage them to be a part of the college going culture we are building here,” said Keisha Brown, College and Career Readiness Advisor.

TWU Scholarship Information

Juniors and Seniors:

Texas Woman’s University is proud to be a Terry Foundation affiliate university and to offer this wonderful opportunity to prospective students.

The Terry Foundation Scholarship covers up to the total cost of attendance for 8 semesters and an additional/options 9thsemester of study aboard funding!

We want to highly encourage you to recommend this opportunity to your students.

Please note, the Terry Foundation Scholarship at TWU has an earlier deadline of January 15, 2016. This scholarship not only requires strong academic ability, but also a record of leadership in school and/or community, and financial need.

The Don't Mess with Texas Scholarship

CTE Student Scholarships

Seniors,

Mahindra USA Inc. and the Career and Technology Association of Texas have announced scholarship opportunities for Texas high school seniors participating in career and technical education to apply for $1000 college scholarships. Deadline to apply is March 31, 2016. Please click here for more information.

Scholarship Opportunity

I would like take this opportunity to invite your students to submit their application to our scholarship program. Texas Farm Credit established a scholarship program for seniors who are graduating and pursuing a college degree in an agriculture-related field of study. This may include agricultural business, animal science, agricultural economics, and others. Our organization awards five, one-time scholarships in the amount of $2,000.00.

Senior Event Dates

Bell Schedules - Regular and Pep Rally

Senior Event Dates

Attendance Reminders

· A Parent’s Note after an absence must be submitted within 3 days after returning to school.

· A Doctor’s Note is required after an Absence for five or more consecutive days. A doctor’s note is required for any absence beginning with the 6th absence within any semester.

· A Doctor’s Appointment where the student attends school for part of the day and returns with a doctor’s note is not counted as an absence. Please avoid scheduling doctor’s appointments during the official attendance period.

· Excused Absences - A student who is absent (excused) shall be permitted to make up work and will receive one day/class meeting for each consecutive day/class meeting’s absence to turn in make-up work or to obtain any information covered during the absence. In general, absences will be excused for the following reasons:

o Personal Illness.

o Doctor’s Appointments

o Court Appearance

o Family emergency if the principal is contacted prior to the absence.